A Feminist Conception of Medusa

[which doctor]

Originally posted by Off the Map
I'd been thinking a lot about Medusa lately, feeling a sort of kinship with her, and hearing that ole Persius had killer her, I automatically didn't like him and so I said so to Hibickina.

"Well, she was turning people to stone and all," Hibickina said. "I think Perseus was rescuing some babe."

"I don't think that she actually turned people to stone," I finally said to Hibickina. "I think that's just a metaphor for their fear. That when they saw such a real, such a wild, magic and powerful woman who lived so unapologetically outside the confines of domesticated femininity, well...they were forced to face their own fears about what that meant. Which probaly rendered them as immobile as stone, mentally or physically."

This is a passage from one of my favorite books that I really wanted to share with some people on this board.

[SPK]

Which book?

[Don't Change Your Name]

Interesting

[bcbm]

Originally posted by SPK@Oct 4 2006, 09:26 PM
Which book?

Off the Map, from CrimethInc.

[Mujer Libre]

Cool paragraph.

It's really interesting. So many of the "evil woman" characters in mythology are probably just metaphors for powerful women, or women who break social conventions.

There seems to be this real binary created between "pure" women and evil temptress/slut/***** women who threaten to break apart society etc. etc.

[Angry Young Man]

Has anyone read "The World's Wife" by Carol Ann Duffy. It's sometimes good, sometimes scary. It has a poem about Medusa, but the best one I've read was Mrs Quasimodo

[TC]

lol thats not a "feminist conception of medusa", its one individual projecting her own feelings onto medusa in a way that is totally subjective and arbitrary, which is one of the major problems with 'media analysis' whether its modern or ancient.

There are lots of strong female figures in greek and roman mythology that break convention and aren't demonized for it. In fact, in the myth of Medusa, she was demonized for pissing off an even stronger, scarier, less conventionally greek-feminine female mythological figure, Athena.

[Physco Bitch]

That is good description of what Medusa was really like, i don't belive she actually turned people to stone when they looked at her. But i can belive that some people would be so shocked in the way she acted that they may have stood still almost as if they were stone. The Ancient Greeks liked to portray women to be just as strong as men, in fact quiet a lot of women back then were held in higher regard than some men. It is a nice fact that they didn't make all their women out to be weak and febel, who would then easily get lured into satanic acts - as we were later to be portrayed as. I have a , lot of respect for Medusa, wether she was "evil" or not.